


Just Call Me Phil

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 80s, Coulson and Skye Mulder and Scullying, Deus Ex Lola, F/M, Flirting, Friendship, Infinity Gems, Kissing, Older Man/Younger Woman, Phil always loves Skye, Teenage Coulson, Time Travel, Young Phil is a lot like Skye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:32:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2636438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye gets a hold of the Time Gem (Infinity Stone) and is transported to the 80s where she meets a 19-year-old Phil Coulson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Call Me Phil

"Stop!"

She flung her hand out in front of her, grabbing the object before Whitehall could touch it.

"Skye!"

It was Coulson's voice.

It was the last thing she heard.

  
***

Skye woke.

The first thing she noticed were the sounds returning.

Crickets. And leaves rustling in the wind.

Sitting up, her eyes adjusted to the light from the cloudy night sky overhead.

The grass below her was brushing along her arms, tickling her. She swiped against the itch with her hand and got to her feet.

She surveyed the landscape around her, just trees and an open field, no structures nearby. And the ground beneath her feet was squishy.

Her boot made a sucking sound as she pulled it out of the mud.

"Dammit," she said, testing the ground in front of her.

She turned and realized her whole backside was covered in mud.

"Double dammit."

Just then, the snap of a twig put her on edge and she crouched as low to the ground as she could, moving forward on her hands and knees toward taller grasses ahead.

"Hands where I can see them," came the voice from behind her. Male, sounded youngish. Maybe 20s. Light accent. American.

She was getting good at this.

Skye slowly raised her hands above her head.

"Turn," he said.

She did and made out the shape of a thin male figure, roughly about her height, pointing something at her. Probably a gun.

He took a step forward and they both heard the squish.

"Great, new shoes," he said, a bit whiny. And distracted.

Skye went for his gun and took it from him as he was shoved backwards slightly, catching his footing. Now _she_ was pointing it back at him.

"Perfect," he said sarcastically, raising his hands. "What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't," she said, seriously.

"Do you have no flashlight to go with no name?"

"What?" she said, annoyed.

"Well, I do," he said. "Have a flashlight _and_ a name. So, why don't we just both calm down, and I'll..."

It flipped on, the light pointed directly at her face.

He tackled her and they went down into the mud as she fought against him, tossing away the gun and flinging him over until she was straddling him, taking the flashlight from him and shining it in his face as he blocked the light with his hands.

"See how you like it," she muttered.

"Do you mind?" he asked, letting his eyes adjust.

"Coulson?!" she said in shock, peering down at him.

The young man beneath her looked genuinely surprised. "Yeah. Agent Coulson, of SHIELD," he said, proudly. "How did you know?"

Skye narrowed her eyes at him. None of this made sense. "You look nervous," she said intensely. "Why is that?"

"Because, as we speak, this mud is staining the Italian wool on my brand new suit."

She huffed and got off of him, standing up, putting out her hand and pulling him to his feet.

"What's really going on?" she asked.

"I'm not supposed to be here," he said, swiping at his suit arms. "I'm kind of breaking protocol."

"For what?" she asked.

"A better question is, what hell are you?" he said, shifting his weight to one hip. "You're SHIELD, right?"

Skye imagined her face told him enough about her so that he continued to spill his guts.

"Anomaly. Came up on the satellite analysis I was looking at. Looks like a crash site, but it was categorized as a weather balloon. And you know what _that's_ code for," he said, the corner of his mouth turning up.

"Omigosh that's so cute," she smiled. "You're a conspiracy theorist!"

He frowned back at her. "And you're SHIELD? Not NSA?"

"Yup," she answered back.

"Let me see a badge," he said, tipping his chin up at her.

That was how she had known it was him at first, honestly. It was that distinctive chin and the bow of his lower lip. Since he'd been hiding his eyes.

"I'm from the dark side of SHIELD," she said.

"What does that mean?" he said skeptically, raising an eyebrow. He had a lot more hair, this Coulson.

"Like, where you go dark and stuff," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "All dark. All the time. No badge."

They both jumped when they heared the sound of dogs barking.

"Local sheriff," Coulson said.

"Unless you're ready to get made," Skye said, "I suggest you cooperate and stop asking so many questions."

"I've got a hotel room in town," he said. "We can figure things out."

"Right," she said.

  
***

"So, what's your name, agent?" he asked, watching her dry her hair with the towel.

"We need new clothes," she said, staring down at her pile on the floor. "Unless this podunk town has dry cleaning service?"

"I can handle that," he said, sitting up off the bed. "What are you, a size 2?"

"Get me a newspaper while you're out."

"No fair, not letting me know your name," he said, with a smirk.

She knew that smirk. It wasn't quite sexy yet, but it would be. She missed that Coulson. He might think she was dead right now.

"That's classified," she answered quickly.

He smiled, tried not to laugh to himself.

"Maybe we could discuss it over dinner? At the Fairmont?

"Yeah, not my kind of thing," she said.

"And what is your kind of thing?" he asked, a little coyly.

"I'm really into 19-year-old Level Ones not trying out their new pickup lines on me."

He laughed at that.

"What level _are_ you?" he said, shrugging in the remains of his suit.

She went to open her mouth, but he put a hand up.

"Let me guess? That's classified."

  
***

  
They went to the diner and sat down in an empty booth as she checked the exits. If she made it to 1982, maybe Whitehall did too? Or, maybe he knew exactly what that stone did.

Now, her freak out was _on_. She could change history. Any little thing she said or did with him could alter her relationship with him in the future, and it put her into a panic.

"Give me a hint," he said, looking over at her from behind the menu.

"No, you're wearing acid wash jeans."

"What? We're passing as 20-somethings from New York visiting a rural American town, acid wash is all the rage."

"You will regret this someday," she said, leaning over at him.

"So, what kind of music do you like?" he asked, looking casually around the diner.

Finally. He was doing some profiling. Skye shook her head.

"Why New York?" she asked. "Why the punk scene?"

"Because," he said quietly, leaning forward. "We're too cool for this place."

"You're talking about me being Asian, right?" she said. "Aaaand, saved by the waitress," she remarked as the woman walked up to them.

"What can I get you two?"

"Just burger and fries, thanks."

"What's the best thing you got?" Coulson asked, grinning up at her.

"Chess pie," she replied, after mulling it over.

"I want that," he said, handing her the menu.

"Wow, that's not organic," Skye said, as the waitress walked away.

"Not _what_?"

"It's, like, pure sugar," she said, "With no nutritional content."

"First, I'm 19. Second, it doesn't matter, because it's the best thing," he answered. "If I like it, I'll come back for more. Besides, it's probably homemade."

" _If_   you make it back," she said, taking out the sweetener packs and lining them up.

"That supposed to scare me?" he asked. "What are you, some kind of alien robot from the future? _What year is it?_ , pattern recognition, Nanoo Nanoo."

"Is that some kind of Trekkie thing?" she asked, looking at his hand gesture and disturbed that he'd picked up so much without realizing it.

"Mork and Mindy?" he asked, looking at her like she was clueless.

  
***

"We have to go back tonight," she said. "They can't have the object."

"They who?" he asked.

"They anyone," she replied.

"You _are_ from the future," he said, his eyes widening. "C'mon, the newspaper? You don't know who Mork and Mindy are?! What is it?" he continued, when she didn't object.

"It's an 084, of course," she replied.

"Holy crap! That's awesome!" he said. "Do you know how badly I want to see one? It's, like, what I live for."

She smiled sweetly at him, and it took him off guard.

"What?" he asked.

"Tell me about yourself," she asked. "You fresh out of the Academy?"

"Still in it," he said, unwrapping the chocolate bar he'd bought at the vending machine outside. "I faked a family emergency to get out of class for this."

"Does May know about this?" she said, teasing.

"Who is May?" he asked, frowning.

"Stop lying, Coulson. She's covering for you, isn't she?"

"Who do you think made up a funeral notice for my fake Aunt Betty?" he asked, annoyed. "Fury sent you, didn't he?"

"You're only Level One," she said, taunting him. "I can't share."

He narrowed his eyes. "This is one of May's elaborate pranks, isn't it?!"

"No, it's not."

"Anyway, you should call me Phil," he said, breaking off a piece of the chocolate and handing it to her. "Even if you won't tell me your name, I know you'll remember mine."

She laughed at him and took the chocolate. "I will."

"I hate to say this," he said, standing up. "But, the 'dinner at the Fairmont thing'?" he said, pulling out his gun. "It's pretty much what we use to verify you aren't a Russian operative."

Skye just rolled her eyes.

He looked like he didn't know what to do with that.

"Coulson," she said, tilting her head. "Do I look like a Russian?"

When she took a step towards him, he raised the gun at her.

"I know about your Captain America card collection."

  
***

"You ever heard of TEMPEST?" Coulson asked her, as they were driving the rental car back towards D.C.

To which Skye had said, "Yes, it's an acronym for Transient Electromagnetic Pulse Emanation Standard. I found out about SHIELD from acronyms, by the way."

He looked annoyed and then impressed, in that order. "Well, some of the guys at the academy came up with a device that tracks it."

"Good," she said. "We can use that. But, I need access to SHIELD's computers."

"You mean the mainframe?"

"Yeah," Skye said, remembering it was 1982 and hating her life. She started thinking about technology options.

"Hey, do you know where we can find Lola?" she asked suddenly.

"How do you know about Lola?" he said. He looked way too excited. But then, this was Coulson.

"Once you meet her," she smiled. "You never forget."

"Yeah, she's _fine_ ," Coulson said, gripping the wheel. "Agent Fury took me on my first ride to offer me the job. I took it. The car kind of sold me."

She looks at the way he's smiling at her.

"Well, we need to borrow her."

  
***

  
They waited until the dark covered them and then they took Lola back into the field where they first met.

After some testing, Coulson mastered her hovercar capabilities and then began driving back and forth across the swamp.

"This switch has a scanner on it," Skye said, her fingers on the panel. "You just adjust the spectrum with this knob."

"You can hack SHIELD's mainframe," he said. "You know more about Lola than anyone. That means you're at least a level 8. Do you know Agent Fury?"

"Friend of a friend," she said. "You're right, Coulson. I'm a Level 8."

Skye had put her muddy field suit back on, and "Phil" (he had insisted she call him that) had made a point to wear his own muddy suit. He'd explained this as some observation he'd had about time travel, making entries and exits as close in condition to their original occurrences. But he also mentioned both Tron and parallel universes, so, that made her suspicious.

They had Lola's headlights scouring the swampland beneath them, scanning for traces of the object's radiation signal.

"I want to go with you," he said, suddenly, turning towards her. "I want to see the things you've seen."

"You'll get there," she said. "In your own time."

Lola started beeping and Skye looked at the panel in front of them, showing a small object just below emitting radiation.

"Take her down," Skye said.

He followed her out of Lola as they neared the glowing stone in the ground below.

She turned back to him, smiling a goodbye.

"Sorry," he began. "I want to be cool about this, but, it's just, I think that maybe...I'm in love with..."

She silenced him with a kiss.

"At least tell me your name," he said, as she looked down at the stone.

"It's just a name. Like Madonna," she said, kneeling. "It's...Sk--"

She touched it.

Then just like that, he was gone.

Or, she was.

  
***

  
Thirst.

She sat up and realized that she was thirsty.

It was the first thing she felt.

And also, that there was sand in every crevice of her body. Ewww.

There was really no noise. It was empty.

Whatever this stone was, it did not want to be found.

And, it had an attitude problem.

  
***

  
"We retrieved the stone," Coulson said, smiling over at her. "But, Skye," he asked, pausing. "Never do that again."

"Glad to have you back," May said, touching her shoulder.

Simmons hugged her and then Fitz and Mack came after in a dogpile.

"Okay," she said, grunting. "I'm good on hugs."

But then Trip showed up and she had to throw her arms around him anyway.

Bobbi and Hunter were there to smile from the sidelines, and then, there was just Coulson.

Everyone had left and they were standing in front of each other, safe, back at the base.

"Sir," she said, staring into his eyes.

"You made it all the way to Cairo," he said, emotions coming over him. "Thankfully, we still have some friendlies there."

She drew in a breath. "It's just a little bit of sand. Okay, a lot."

"I thought that you were dead," he said. She felt something twist inside her as his face turned distraught.

"I'm not," she said, putting her arms around him. "But, it was so good just to hear your voice."

And then they were kissing. Again. But now it was her Coulson, and his kisses.

" _Skye_ ," he said, holding her close. "Never do that again."

"I missed you, Coulson." She reached up to run her hand over his face, the lines at the corners of his eyes where he smiled, that wonderful chin. And the bow of his lip.

And those eyes...

"It's Phil," he said, "Just call me Phil."


End file.
